1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an emergency buckle device for use in a seatbelt system for protecting an occupant of a vehicle in an emergency.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been proposed passive seatbelt systems for automatically fastening a restraining webbing to an occupant upon his entering a vehicle. In one type of the abovementioned passive seatbelt systems, an outer end of the occupant restraining webbing is secured to a door of the vehicle, and the intermediate portion of the webbing is caused to approach or recede from an occupant's seat in accordance with the closing or opening action of the door, whereby the webbing is automatically fastened to or unfastened from the occupant.
In a passive seatbelt system of the type just described, the outer end of the occupant restraining webbing is secured to the door through an emergency buckle device, whereby said buckle device causes the vehicle door to reliably support the tension on the webbing generated by an inertial force of the occupant in an emergency of the vehicle, so that the occupant can be secured in the restrained state. Furthermore, after a collison, the webbing is released from the buckle device thereby unfastening the webbing from the occupant, and the door is made openable thereby enabling the occupant to quickly escape from the vehicle.
However, in the emergency buckle devices described above, a large-sized buckle device such as those used in fastening the webbing to or unfastening same from the occupant in conventional seatbelt systems is utilized. Consequently the anchor point where the outer end of the webbing is engaged with the buckle device is disposed comparatively further forward in the vehicle, whereby the fastening of the webbing to the occupant is not necessarily made in a proper arrangement during normal running condition of the vehicle, thereby giving an uncomfortable feeling to the occupant and displaying unsatisfactory occupant restraining performance in an emergency such as a collision of the vehicle.